TACIT TACTICS
Transcoded in Unsatisfactory Formats
TRANSCODED IN UNSATISFACTORY FORMATS
Duration: 20 minutes
March 2014, It's About To Start, Kings Cross
(Re-Performed in expanded form at Archway Studios, March 2014)
Medium: Three chairs, placard, video projector, concrete rocks, CD, portable stereo, cactus, Tacit Tactics propaganda, three platforms
Dimensions: Variable. Duration: 20 minutes
Plastic bags, video projector, CD, portable stereo, two chairs, water, imitation wooden floor, concrete rocks, cactus, objects belonging to the artists (various).
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Recoded In Writing Gloria Lin, 2014
Transcoded in Unsatisfactory Formats is a performative installation of Tacit Tactics' histories, the notion of speaking in place for those who cannot be here and the liquidity of memory lost in obsolete recording devices.
It involves spoken word of interchangeable and exchanged narrative personal memories, collected from within and after the borders changed of their global 'East', of which Lin and Platisa were both born in. This is accompanied by a sound piece of revolutionary songs in the form of a 'liquidated' mix tape/CD made from Communist Yugoslavian, Communist Chinese and Nationalist Taiwanese Armies. Both nations and all ethnicities that have known pluralism through the contested territories of imposed official identity change. The past is as clear as a Liquid Crystal Display screen.
A text printed in colour photocopies forms a checkerboard of pixels, set within the greater political world of the 'whole image', of which will always be incomplete, however here it is adorned with a friendly cactus and several sturdy concrete rocks that support a cheap CD stereo player.
A video is projected at the same time, with a looped layering of images taken by Lin and Platisa of found and salvaged family portraits, Skype conversations and images made from moving vehicles, (car, train and bus) in the countryside, family pets which existed before both artists were born. One photo appears and unfolds on top of another, rupturing the the spoken narrative and confusing both histories and testimonies as to which narratives belongs to which artist.
They could in fact belong to both, belong to everyone - or be entirely fictional.
In its expanded form, original personal artefacts in re-sealable small plastic bags are nailed to the wall containing items such as a Sony DSC Handycam, old mobile phones that no longer have chargers manufactured for them, audio magnetic cassette tapes with unavailable means of transcoding the interviews inscribed on them. The watch given to Lin and the tissues that Platisa's sister cried into when their uncle and grandfather died. Lin's Kodak Ektachrome Super8 film cartridge, a photo of the Catholic nun from Kansas who named her in Hong Kong, whose current location or existence is unknown. Lin's father's bookmark. Platisa's war survival manual from the Yugoslavian conflict and her birth certificate. These are all included as evidence.
There is a bag which contains a missing digital JPEG file, it is a photo of Lin sleeping.
This work is an announcement from the Tacit Tactics Liberation Front. It is devised to be performed with or without an audience. It is related to the velocity of feelings, the simultaenous geographies of politicised existence and dedicated to the worlds which are invisible, but govern us daily: memory, the financial system, the theft of consent and the mourning of distance. It is an attempt to liberate oneself - from that which we cannot see.
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